Title

Authors

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

10-2014

Abstract

For well more than a millennium, from at least the 15th century through the third century B.C.E., Cypriots wrote in syllables. Why and how they first began writing is unclear, and the language(s) expressed by syllabic writing during the Bronze Age is/are still unknown (ca. 216 inscriptions [ch. 2]). The earliest syllabic inscription that can be read dates to the 11th century and expresses a Greek name. But when and how and why Cypriots adapted their syllabic script specifically to write Greek remains unclear. Most of the 1,360 syllabic inscriptions (ch. 7) written in the course of the next 800 years express Greek. Why and how syllabic script persisted after the introduction of alphabets (Phoenician by the ninth century B.C.E., Greek by the sixth century B.C.E.) is not yet well understood.

Document Object Identifier (DOI)

10.3764/ajaonline1184.Hirschfeld

Repository Citation

Hirschfeld, N. (2014). [Review of the book Syllabic writing on Cyprus and its context, by P. M. Steele]. American Journal of Archaeology, 118(4). doi: 10.3764/ajaonline1184.Hirschfeld